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The Africa Regional Office (AfRO) is part of the Open Society Foundations (OSF). OSF is a global network of foundations committed to local knowledge and national expertise, and including national foundations, regional foundations, and other geographic programs operating in more than one hundred countries. AfRO works at Pan-African and international levels to support African progress towards open society goals through advocacy, research, grant making, and government and multilateral assistance, and supports OSF’s foundations and thematic programs to achieve their Africa-focused strategies.

Today comes the seventh year of the international conspiracy, in which obscurantist forces and Libyan agents participated in the war against Libya and its safe people, where innocent people were hurled to take part through the launching of false slogans by a media campaign carried out by excessive regional and international mass media machines.

During his 32 years in power, President Museveni has developed a consistent pattern of deploying hate speech to insult or ridicule his political opponents as a most preferred strategy of regime survival. Incitement of his supporters against his political opponents is the corner stone of his policy.

White capital has no problem with corruption; the problem they had with Jacob Zuma is that they were being side-lined in the corrupt deals of the state under his watch, with far more going to the Gupta family and a new Black elites. Turning on the Zuma faction and backing Ramaphosa is unlikely to end corruption in South Africa.

The new head of state of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, assumed power amid relief and jubilation. However, he needs to tackle serious challenges including serving the interest of ordinary people and fighting against corruption if he wants that jubilation to go on.

Imperialism is less concerned with human rights and democratic elections in Africa. What really matters is the maintenance of a system that serves their interests no matter how it assumes or maintains power. The same goes for Zimbabwe; what they are interests in is not the new president, but what the West hopes he would do to safeguard their interests.

Black people need to write their own stories; to keep some aspects of our lives forever secret and unwritten is not helpful at all. There is also need to fund projects that document these stories, as we cannot forever react to the deliberate distortions of our being by the global white supremacist establishment.

African progressive organisations and movements stand in solidarity with the people of Venezuela to oppose any imperialist interventions that only seek to install a puppet government to serve the interests of imperialist powers.

Imitators and the supposed dissenters in the global South are a part and parcel of the Western bourgeoisie and their agenda; and it is the reason why the global South never has a voice of our own that is at once eclectic to confront imperialism.

A plan to fund, to the tune of over US $14.5 billion, the project of water transfer from the Congo River to Lake Chad as a way of saving the lake and the livelihoods of millions of people living around the lake could have been another reason that the former Libyan leader Gaddafi was assassinated.

Most of Africa’s past, even present, leaders have been complicit in the misrepresentation of Africa, as they have often been instruments of neo-colonialism. African leaders, with any sign of bravery are often summarily sabotaged, if not executed—invariably with the aid of fellow Black Africans. Africa needs who have Africans' interests at heart.

Oppressed and humiliated people responding to racism cannot be illegitimate. It is racism that is illegitimate. It is the oppressed who feel the weight of violence on their shoulders and it is them who must decide their own best possible method to escape their dehumanisation.

The departure of long-serving African leaders in Zimbabwe, Angola and The Gambia in 2017 ushered in measured hope for change and a desire for more such changes. Can new leaders in those countries meet people's high expectations?

Zimbabweans need to do some serious introspection and take control of their destiny. This will require courage and determination on the part of all Zimbabweans. For far too long, Zimbabweans have allowed ZANU-PF to manipulate the electoral process to their advantage by playing the tribal game to capitalise on their numbers and Zimbabweans have fallen for it again and again.

Features

White capital has no problem with corruption; the problem they had with Jacob Zuma is that they were being side-lined in the corrupt deals of the state under his watch, with far more going to the Gupta family and a new Black elites. Turning on the Zuma faction and backing Ramaphosa is unlikely to end corruption in South Africa.

The linking of our ancestors who are gone, ourselves here, those coming, our continuation, our flowing along our living way, the way: it is that remembrance that calls us. That remembrance not only birthed successive waves of global insurrection, but directed the everyday lives of millions of forcibly dislocated Africans.

African Americans and their children need to tell their own stories, instead of enabling misguided bigots to seize the narrative – a false narrative that misrepresents them, as a people and threatens their uniqueness, as individuals.

Swaziland is Africa's last absolute monarchy. While some foreigners might have problems while visiting the kingdom and get or seek for help from their governments; Swazi people seem to have nowhere to seek for help. The story of Peter Kenworthy confirms that.

The Nigeria legal system is not only conservative; it is elitist. More and more the system is programmed to inculcate in lawyers a mechanical adherence to elitist practices that are dangerous to progressive evolution of law. The hijab of Firdaus is not a case about religion; it is about a lady challenging a contradictory status quo.

Food & Health

What kind of a moron appoints Robert Mugabe as goodwill ambassador for health? That is what the new Ethiopian-born Director General of the World Health Organization did – sparking global consternation. The appointment, now reversed, underlines one fact: Tedros Adhanom lacks what it takes to head even a village clinic.

Activists from anti-capitalist militant organizations in North Africa met in Tunis on 4th and 5th July 2017 to set up the North African Network for Food Sovereignty. The network is a unifying structure for struggles in the region and will be involved in local, continental and international mobilisation.

On 23 May 2017 Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia was elected WHO Director-General. In a letter released a head of the election, over 200 scientists, policy experts and others concerned persons are urging the new Director-General to recognize and address factory farming as a growing public health challenge. Just as the WHO has bravely confronted companies that harm human health by peddling tobacco and sugar-sweetened beverages, it must not waver in advocating for the regulation of industrial animal farming.

Somalia’s president has declared the famine ravaging the country a national disaster. There has been little response from the world. Drought is a natural calamity that can happen anywhere, but what makes it more deadly in Somalia is the continued conflict that prevents relief aid from reaching the needy or makes it difficult for affected nomads to travel to other places to find help.

Land Rights & Environment

The meeting between US ambassador to Uganda Debra Malac with Uganda's disgraced Minister for Foreign Affairs Sam Kutesa on 19 January 2018 demonstrated that the value of Uganda’s cooperation in furthering American foreign policy and corporate interests clearly outweighs any embarrassment caused by Kutesa’s alleged incontinence.

Storms and hurricanes are becoming more severe due to warmer sea temperatures. Low lying island nations now experience annual flooding with the seawater contaminating groundwater supplies. Whether it is flooding or drought, or any other climate related catastrophic event, the poor nations of the world and their populations suffer most.

It has been said that it is insane to do the same thing again and again and expect a different result. The present world system is not sustainable for the majority of the people or the Planet. What is urgently needed is transformation at the levels of the individual and society.

Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, founder of Indian agribusiness giant Karuturi Global and self-proclaimed pioneer of the cut flower revolution in the world, is leaving Ethiopia. Empty-handed. After 10 years, it has now dawned on him that the 300,000 hectares of farmland he was offered by the government was a con. That is what happens to anyone who does business with the kleptocracy in Addis.